Expedition 33's Budget Was A Way For Sandfall To Prove Indies Could Deliver AAA Game Experien

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not just the biggest breakout game of 2025, but it's also poised to take home a lot of year-end awards as well. That includes Best RPG, Best Story, Best Performances, Game of the Year, and Best Indie Game.

That last one is a sticking point for some, given the game's size and scope, plus the fact that developer Sandfall Interactive had a publisher for the game.

Despite that fact, Sandfall views itself as an indie developer, and with Expedition 33, it wanted to prove that these smaller, independent studios were capable of making large-scale games without out-of-control budgets and gigantic development teams.

Talking with the New York Times, they confirmed that the game's budget was under $10 million. One way the team was able to stick with such a small budget was by avoiding current trends in modern gaming, notably not chasing the open world rabbit hole. While Expedition 33's Overworld is fully explorable, most of the gameplay takes place in somewhat linear dungeons. This allowed the team at Sandfall to not waste resources fine-tuning a massive open world.

“We have the tech now to make those games with a relatively small team,” said Guillaume Broche, CEO and co-founder of Sandfall. “Games like this are coming. We are lucky to be early.”

As Games Go More Open World, Budgets Have Continued To Soar

It's no secret that the cost of making a video game today is massive. Marvel's Spider-Man 2, released for the PlayStation 5 in 2023, reportedly had a budget of over $300 million. Grand Theft Auto 6's budget, while unknown, is expected to be massive, possibly exceeding $1 billion.

There's a continued trend in AAA gaming to make these games bigger and bigger, but bigger does not always mean better. A massive open-world where you can see and do anything seems nice in theory, but consider some of the best-reviewed games of 2025. Hades 2, Expedition 33, Donkey Kong Bananza, Hollow Knight: Silksong, Split Fiction: all of these games have one thing in common: they eschew giant open worlds for a more focused, intimate gaming experience.

Even a recent open-world game I love, like Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, was brought down with what felt like unnecessary padding in its open-world side quests. Sure, it makes the games longer, but it's not something everyone wants.

“You don’t need to fill your game with hundreds of hours of checklist content,” Billy Basso, developer of Animal Well, told the New York Times. “People like more straightforward games.”

He's exactly right. If there's one takeaway for publishers and developers to consider from this year, it's that you don't need bigger games to succeed in the marketplace.

To be fair, Sandfall did use funding from Kepler to help outsource things like battle animations, as well as help secure the game's impressive voice cast, headlined by Ben Starr, Jennifer English, and Andy Serkis. Still, through all of that, the core development team hovered around 30 or so people, proving that these smaller studios can indeed deliver AAA experiences.